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Anti-cigarette body to protest against FDI in India

Sandesh Prabhudesai in Panaji

The Bharatiya Janata Party's decision to allow cent per cent foreign direct investment in tobacco industry in India has been condemned by the National Organisation for Tobacco Eradication.

NOTE has also demanded immediate revocation of two more decisions.

In a letter written to Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee, NOTE chairman Dr Sharad Vaidya describes BJP's tobacco promotion policy as paradoxical to the party's health improvement programme, and as against the World Health Organisation guidelines.

The industry ministry has come under fire for clearing a proposal to allow Indian Tobacco Corporation to triple the capacity of its Kidderpore plant in Calcutta from 4.8 billion to 12.25 billion cigarettes.

Similarly, the government has allowed cent per cent FDI in India for the UK-based Rothmans of Pall Mall International and to set up a new, $ 150 million plant. "Tobacco, whether swadeshi or videshi, is equally poisonous," states Dr Vaidya.

He has also brought to Vajpayee's notice the WHO figures, as per which one person dies every 40 seconds in India due to tobacco consumption. It piles up to 2,200 deaths per day and over 800,000 deaths per year, while the tobacco is used by 200 million men and 45 million women.

Even the tobacco-related diseases in the country, Dr Vaidya quotes, include 400,000 cancer cases, 1.3 million cases of coronary artery disease and seven million cases of chronic obstructive lung diseases. Over 60 per cent of heart patients below 40 years are smokers, he adds.

With this rate, states Dr Vaidya, around 10 million people are expected to die of tobacco-related diseases every year by 2020 in the developing countries. One third of it would be in India alone, he observes, while reiterating the need to discourage tobacco consumption in the country.

NOTE plans a year-long programme of anti-tobacco educational campaign for South-East Asian countries beginning May 31, 1999. One such pilot programme has already been launched in Pune on August 14 while Goa would launch it on October 11. It would be then also launched in Bangalore and Indore.